


who even are we

by arimabat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A lot of talking, Angst, BlueWidow, F/F, First Kiss, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Natasha Romanov Feels, POV Nebula, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Canon, because they'll all be alive do you hear me, but actually kind of less than usual?, i have a lot of feelings about these two, like by my usual nebula standards this is positively fluffy, post trailer therapy, tragic siblings, yeah that's a thing now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 14:21:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16894263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arimabat/pseuds/arimabat
Summary: Thanos is defeated. And Nebula has managed to bring Gamora back.So why can’t she bring herself to visit her? And why is one of Terra’s Avengers so interested in her?Or: the one where Nebula and Natasha talk a lot, and then something more develops. Because reasons.





	who even are we

She exerted her will on the gauntlet, one last time. _Praying_ \- almost, with wild irrational belief, that what was taken by the stone might be given back too, as all the others had been.

What one stone took as bargain from another, surely it could give back? And it wasn’t like Nebula didn’t _know_ that it might have consequences, didn’t _know_ that what she was doing was more than simply reversing time, was yanking someone back from the dead or certainly from the beyond… But this was the infinity gauntlet, with all the power imaginable over the fabric of the universe. And if the soul stone wanted to take another soul… So be it.

In the end, that might have been what did it. The soul stone, as had been repeatedly explained to her, thrived on the idea of sacrifice. Of what souls might do for each other. And that simple willingness, to take another’s place if need be, was enough to reverse the stone’s act. Because the man who had sacrificed her sister in the first place no longer possessed the stone. And it was not his desires that mattered now.

There wasn’t an explosion. No loud sounds, no bright lights. Barely a wisp of smoke. Just a shift - from one second to the next. First, there was nothing. Then, Gamora was there. Lying on the ground, sideways with her arms and legs somewhat spread out and her hair covering her face. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that for a moment Nebula didn’t move. Neither did the others - who had been watching her with trepidation even as they wished to rush to the ones that in another timeline would have disappeared moments earlier. And now, another had joined them in the woodland of Wakanda.

Nebula let out a small sound which was somewhere between a cough and a gasp. She stepped forward before becoming aware once more of the heavy weight of the gauntlet, releasing it and letting it fall to the ground with a heavy thump. One foot moved forward, not leaving the ground so that it brushed through bark and ash and dirt. Almost like it was trying to dig in, to keep her there. Her knees shook as the other foot moved in front of the first, and again - a little faster now. Three more steps and she fell forward, almost onto Gamora as she broke off the fall with her knees just behind Gamora and her hands on her other side, vaguely aware of the pain but not really finding it to matter much. A hand - her own - reached forward to brush the hair out of Gamora’s face - then changing its mind to tilt her head towards her first, terrified that there was no breath to be felt so that the fingers gingerly pressed against the temple of her face on the other side, making it turn towards her jerkily as some of the hair fell away. She reached out again, to move away more of the hair.

“Nebula.”

She didn’t look up, letting her fingers thread through the hair, feeling how very soft and silky those strands were before almost reluctantly moving them away from the eyes - closed - the mouth - a little ajar - the nose - breathing?

“Is she breathing?” Steve’s voice, she thought absent-mindedly.

Someone knelt down on Gamora’s other side. “Nebula? Can you let me check on her?”

Nebula shook her head. “I have to -“

“You’ve done very well already,” said the man. Bruce. Like he was speaking to a child. “But I need to examine her, Nebula. Do you understand?”

Her hands were still in the hair and - in a rush - she brushed back the rest of the hair. She stared down at Gamora’s face. Saw her last expression.

Terror. Anguish. Confusion.

So many years of struggling to read that face. And now - suddenly - it revealed everything to her. Things Nebula didn’t want to see.

A wheezing expression came from the body. And then a rasping sound. And then Gamora inhaled.

“Thank god,” someone muttered behind her. But she fell back.

The weariness of using the gauntlet never meant for one like her was catching up with Nebula. Energy was leeching out of her body at ever faster a pace, replaced not by peace but by emptiness. Like her insides were all being drained, falling out until she was hollow inside. In the end, she had accomplished her mission. And more than that, she had brought back her sister. She had been able to do for Gamora what even Thanos, with all his might, had been unable to do.

But she had seen the expression on Gamora’s face. And she knew that Thanos’ favourite was something she wasn’t supposed to be. Because Gamora was the one who had escaped, who had become more than what Thanos designed her to be. That was why she was supposed to survive. She was the one who was supposed to be happy.

And now Gamora was broken.

* * *

Later, Natasha would give her a rough account of what happened next. She did so sitting at Nebula’s bedside, up herself despite the cuts and the bruises that were for the most part hidden from sight. Gave her the information that the nurses had been unable to provide. A simple courtesy, Nebula supposed, of an ally in war. She barely knew any of them, got on with even fewer. She wondered whether they were scared of her, even now. The thought did not give her as much comfort as it should.

Natasha told her that Thor had gone to Titan to collect those who had been turned to ash - but not anymore - by Thanos’ snap. She told her that since history had changed through their actions, only those left at the end to directly battle Thanos - at the eye of the storm so to speak - remembered anything of that post-snap wasteland. Kept its wounds with them. She explained that Wakanda and another place - New York she called it - were still reeling under the effects of the conventional warfare they had faced, but would rebuild in due course, even if attitudes towards the Avengers were chillier than ever. Her face grew harder when she told Nebula that some of Thanos’ acts would not be undone and that Xandar remained lost to them. And she said that they had decided not to tell Terra of the truth of what had happened.

“Why not?” asked Nebula.

Natasha, who had been inspecting a crease in Nebula’s blankets with great concentration, looked up in surprise. She had probably gotten used to her listening in silence. “They couldn’t handle the truth, quite frankly,” she said. “The others took some… convincing on this, but the research is out there on how humans deal with even the possibility of an apocalypse, of mass catastrophes out of their control. What’s the point of causing an unnecessary mental health crisis? After all this, I’d rather not be responsible for people committing suicide just in the name of _honesty_.”

Nebula wrinkled her nose. “Why would anyone do that because they might have died? That doesn’t make any sense.”

A shrug. “It’s a reassertion of control. The truth is that no one could control whether they even existed or not, when the snap happened. It was all down to dumb luck. That’s not an easy thing to deal with.”

“And you all agreed to this lie?” asked Nebula, thinking back to the impressions she had formed of the Avengers. This one she wasn’t surprised by. As for the others…

“Like I said, it took some convincing.”

Nebula let out an involuntary snort at her matter-of-fact tone and saw Natasha smile at the sound.

“Your sister woke up yesterday,” she said, her intent gaze focused on Nebula.

It was like someone had punched her in the gut. She searched in her brain for something resembling relief, happiness even, but didn’t find it. “Right.”

“Quill’s with her,” continued Natasha. If she was put out by the reaction, she certainly didn’t show it. “He was only slightly injured by the battle - apart from, well…”

“Being turned to ash.”

“Yes, that.” A rueful smile. “I’m sure he’ll want to see you too. Rocket told him what you did. I hear he’s very grateful.”

She couldn’t imagine caring less. “I’ll pass.”

“It’s up to you, of course… You can see your sister, though, if you want. She’s… She still has a lot of recovering to do, but I’m sure it’d help, seeing you.”

Nebula looked away. “I doubt that,” she muttered. Then, louder - “How much longer before I can leave these medical quarters?”

A pause. “Shuri thinks you’re pretty much fine. Still need to rest, of course, build up muscle strength again after everything that happened. I hear she’s putting you on quite a strict diet. But you can stay in the guest quarters like all the others. Just after a nurse comes and checks on you this afternoon.”

“Are all the others still here?”

Nebula looked back at the Terran to see her shake her head. “Thor’s gone. To find his people, I’m guessing. He’s… well, anyway… Tony’s taken the kid, Peter, back to New York to his aunt. One of the few of us who can still travel around freely without being arrested. But he’ll probably be back soon, to figure some stuff out. Carol’s taken off again, and Scott’s gone back to his family… Clint’s still recovering from the shrapnel but we’ve brought his family here. He wanted me to thank you for pushing him out of the way, by the by. You saved his life.”

She nodded, an awkward gesture. “Just instinct.”

“That’s not what his kids think. You’re their new hero.”

Nebula shuddered, hating the thought.

“Everyone else is still here, more or less all right. There’s… Well, no one’s fine, obviously. But alive. Rocket’s been repairing the ship. Apparently he’s been making good progress.”

“That’s… good.” Nebula wondered why Natasha was here, passing on all this information. They probably thought they should send someone. To show they cared, or something stupidly Terran like that. Maybe Natasha had just gotten unlucky. That didn’t mean she did not appreciate the news.

They had been allies, for a short time. But it wouldn’t be long before Nebula was alone again. With nothing left to do.

And what then?

* * *

‘Guest quarters’ in this instance was a polite way of referring to what was essentially a fugitive’s hideout. As far as Nebula could gather, the only people who weren’t wanted by the government of some place called America were either not from Terra or royalty. Some (as Tony stressed several times, this category included himself, Rhodey and possibly Bruce) merely had an ‘uncertain’ legal status. The others were straight-up wanted criminals, which was not something she had expected to have in common with them. She’d thought of them as… well, the good guys of their planet.

“Maybe you should have told them you saved the universe,” she remarked dryly.

“Some of us wanted to,” said Tony, shooting Natasha a dirty look.

“And others put the well being of everyone on this planet over personal inconveniences,” said Natasha in a pleasant tone.

One of the people who had been dusted (she was still catching up on names) snorted into his coffee. Tony rolled his eyes and wandered off.

“I’m Sam, by the way,” the man said, smiling at Nebula.

She wasn’t really sure of what she was meant to do with this information, but after a moment she responded. “Hello.”

“Hey. Heard you saved all of our lives so… thanks for that.”

Nebula nodded. He looked like he was waiting for more than that, so the silence turned awkward.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked eventually.

“I am,” she said.

“Good to hear. So am I, but then again I guess it’s not hard to feel better than a cloud of ash.”

“That didn’t technically happen,” said Natasha, sliding down next to him. “Changed timelines and all that.”

He sniffed. “Easy for you to say.”

“Besides, it’s not like you could remember it.”

Sam shook his head slowly, a solemn look on his face that Nebula was fairly sure was ironic. “You say that but sometimes… When I stare down at the bottom of my coffee and see the powder residues, I think - _Yeah, I know how that feels_. It’s just given me a whole level of empathy.”

Natasha raised her eyebrows and shot Nebula a look. “Uh huh.”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“I’m so sad to have missed the experience,” she said wryly.

Sam grinned before finishing his coffee with a large gulp.

Natasha turned again to Nebula, who had been following this exchange with vague bemusement. “Hey, don’t suppose you’ve visited your sister yet?”

This caught Nebula off guard and she instantly shook her head. “No,” she added unnecessarily.

“Oh. Well, she’s been asking after you.”

“I know.” She felt uncomfortable, keenly aware of both Terrans observing her closely. “I’ll…” she started and broke off, having no clue where that sentence was going. “I have something I need to do,” she said, the epitome of smooth, and stood up in a single, rapid movement. Trying not to make it look like she was fleeing the room while in fact fleeing the room, she inclined her head towards each of them, both looking at her with equal amounts scepticism and worry. “I’ll see you around.”

She turned and left, walking quickly.

* * *

Out of the door and onto the lawns outside of the guest quarters. If she continued walking in that direction, she would eventually come to a sheer drop from which she could see Wakanda’s capital stretching below her. She felt the grass brushing against her, reaching over her ankles and waving merrily with the wind. It was an open space and all things considered she would have probably been best off staying indoors if she wanted to remain hidden. It didn’t help that in this backdrop of soft green and brown, she was more than a little conspicuous.

She made a turn to the left, where there wasn’t much cover either but at least a few trees clustered together, providing a pleasant bit of shade from the late morning sun. If all of Terra was like this, she could hardly deny that it had its charms. In the service of Thanos and after that still, she had gotten used to a variety of barren rocks where the Mad Titan was based, large, sprawling cities where her targets slept, and the occasional seedier establishment and galactic slum where the criminal underground liked to conduct their business. Planets were rarely visited for long; natural sunlight was for the most part a forgotten luxury. Certainly, she was hardly used to being treated like a royal in a country as rich and as peaceful as Wakanda.

It made her uneasy - the soft allure of comfort, the pleasing sensations making her back prickle in search of a trap. Yet her body was betraying her in its enjoyment of this experience and she could feel her mind grow less sharp in this sanctuary. She had to tell herself it would not last and surely would not have a permanent effect.

She had nearly reached the trees when a voice called out behind her.

“Hold up!”

Nebula looked around. Natasha was jogging up to meet her. “Yes?”

The long red hair whipped around her face in the breeze as she caught up, stopping next to where Nebula was waiting. She looked intently at Nebula, with a half-smile that was becoming familiar playing across her face. “Just wanted to ask…” A small sigh. “I was wondering - what are you going to do now?”

“What do you mean?”

“With your life.”

“Why do you care?”

The question shot out immediately, without effort. Hostility came easily to Nebula - more reflex than anything else.

“Call it personal interest.” The Terran didn’t seem deterred. “You’ve got your sister back now. Going to travel with them?”

“It’s -“ _none of your business_. She didn’t say. Because she had worked with them as a team and she had learned to exist well enough alongside them. With all their strange histories, their infighting, their outbursts of emotion… This one less than the rest, to be fair. “They’re giving me a ride.”

“Off this planet?”

Nebula didn’t answer.

“And then?”

“Is this going somewhere?”

“I’m just asking,” said Natasha. She raised her hands, to show she meant no harm Nebula supposed. A beat. “So have you spoken to them about this?”

Nebula sniffed. “What, do you think they’d leave me stranded on this rock?”

“Not an answer.”

“I don’t have to give you one.”

“Fair,” said Natasha. But she didn’t move.

Nebula waited.

“When are you leaving?” the Terran asked eventually.

“Soon, hopefully.”

“Uh huh,” she said, inclining her head. “Fair. Can’t imagine you’d want to stick around. Still” - her smile widened slightly, became more genuine - “while you’re here, don’t suppose you’d want to join me for a drink?”

Nebula wrinkled her nose. “I don’t drink your Terran liquor.”

“Have you tried it?” Before Nebula could answer, she pressed on. “Not liquor, then. Just… anything.”

“I’m not thirsty.”

Natasha raised her eyebrows as if she were saying - _are you kidding me_? “Well maybe,” she said, sounding like she had to deliberately restrain her exasperation, “you’ll be thirsty by the time we’ve walked back to the guest quarters. There’s a small bar I happen to know that has all kinds of drinks available. We’ll find you something. Come on.”

She turned and started walking, not even waiting for Nebula to agree. Nebula hesitated, still irritated at the Terran’s presumptuousness and not entirely sure what purpose this would serve. Then she sighed and trotted after Natasha.

* * *

They continued away from the entrance to the guest quarters as Nebula wondered where she was being taken. She didn’t like not knowing. As they walked parallel to the wall, curving around the quarters where some of them were staying but luckily away from the medical centre, they remained silent, even though Natasha occasionally glanced at her like she wanted to say something.

Eventually, they walked towards the building and stopped at a door.

Nebula looked at the heavy white door suspiciously. “Where does this lead?”

“Maintenance rooms. Kitchen, storage, all that kind of stuff. I thought it might be locked the first time I had a poke around, but it’s not.”

“Why would you want to go there?”

“From there, you can get to a bit of the guest wing that’s sealed off for us.” She stepped forward and pressed down the dull metal handle, pulling the door towards her with a little effort. “Haven’t seen many normal doors since I’ve been here. I get the sense this place hasn’t been renovated in a while.”

Nebula pressed her lips together as she followed Natasha into a dingy corridor, the door slamming shut behind them. It made her jump, high enough that she was happy Natasha was walking in front of her. “What’s wrong with our guest wing?”

“Nothing at all. I just happen to like the bar here, as I said.”

“We have… a bar. And… recreational areas.”

“Sometimes, I need a little privacy.” She made a right turn into a broader corridor with doors leading off either side, Nebula falling into step beside her.

“Then why bring me here?”

“Like I said. Privacy.”

This wasn’t much of an answer, yet she could at least empathise with the desire for solidarity. With so many people bustling around Wakanda’s palace, recovering from their wounds and… well, spilling all their emotions everywhere, she could do with a break. It would be better if she didn’t have to be accompanied by someone who would probably keep asking about her damn sister.

Natasha stopped at a broader pair of doors and pushed one open, holding it open with Nebula and waving her in with an ironic little smile. Nebula’s teeth were clenched together, but she entered anyway, passing the Terran as she looked around the room.

The bar area itself was small, with a couple of bar stools in front of a counter, and behind that a few wall cupboards. A sink behind the counter, neat wood panelling, the cupboards themselves covered with an intricate pattern of dark blue and bright yellow. In a different part of the room, marked by a wooden floor rather than stone, a couple of couches and small tables sat around in front of a large window. It was all pretty enough, she supposed, in a rather senseless, mundane sort of way. There was a kind of bland cleanliness to it that was familiar enough to her, yet nothing here had the same sense of love and care that seeped into Wakanda’s other corners. Clearly not used often, either, she thought as she watched Natasha pass her again and walk behind the counter. With a moment of hesitation, she followed her but did not sit.

“Water?”

“That’s fine.”

“Good,” said Natasha, bending down to get two glasses out. “Has anyone been keeping you up to date on how your sister recovering?”

Nebula scowled. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

The Terran made a non-committal sound as she poured water into them. “Lucky the sinks still work.” Then - “It can’t have been easy for her. Going through that.”

 _What would you know of it_?

“But it’s not easy for us either, is it? We remember. All of it. Them being dead.”

“There’s no point in talking about it.”

Natasha looked her over with a disconcertingly calculating look as she placed the two glasses on the counter top, before walking around the counter and settling down on one of the stools. “Come on, sit down.”

Nebula stared at her for a moment, but then did so. She still wasn’t entirely sure what Natasha wanted, but decided her patience hadn’t run out just yet. “Your friend Sam. He was gone, wasn’t he?”

Natasha nodded. “There aren’t an awful lot of people in this world I trust. And Sam…” She scrunched up her face and laughed. “He’s all right, I suppose.”

They did this a lot, Nebula thought. Made fun of each other, made it sound like they barely liked each other. But they clearly did, these Terrans. This joking… it was almost a sign that they were comfortable with each other. When they weren’t, they didn’t mock each other. Like there was an awkwardness there that nobody quite wanted to address.

“Anyone else?” she asked.

Pain flickered through the Terran’s expression and Nebula wondered whether she had made a mistake. They hadn’t ever discussed this before, and now… But it was gone quickly enough.

“Wanda, too. She, Steve, Sam and myself had been on the run together for almost two years before that. Enough time to really miss someone when they’re gone.”

Nebula nodded, as if she understood.

“You must be glad it’s over.”

“What?”

“All of it. You can relax now.”

Nebula stretched her lips into a smile that was more of a grimace. “I don’t really do relaxing.”

The Terran sipped at her water, watching Nebula closely. “You’ve killed him,” she said. “And obviously that mattered - more than anything, perhaps. But now… you have your entire life ahead of you.”

“So?”

“So you get to have some fun with it, don’t you think?”

Nebula bristled. “I don’t want fun.”

“Can’t say if you’ve never tried it,” said Natasha with a grin. Her lightness seemed affected, almost - though maybe Nebula was being ridiculous. She was just used to people trying to get her off guard. But what purpose could that possibly serve, in this instance?

“I don’t need it. Just because - It’s not for people like me.”

Natasha’s smile faded then, before dropping off her face entirely. To her surprise, Nebula was sorry to see it go. But the Terran now looked sad more than anything else, and perhaps a little pensive. Her wrist moved in a circular motion so that the water swirled around her glass, while continuing to stare at Nebula. “I used to think like you, once,” she said eventually. “Not exactly like you, of course. But… this idea, that there were some things that just weren’t _for me_ , that’s something I remember well. It took me quite some time to get over that.”

“Things like what?” asked Nebula.

“For one thing? Friends.”

Nebula did not quite know what to make of that. Her first response was a slight disbelief that this woman, so at ease with her comrades, had ever been unfamiliar with having _friends_.

She sipped at the water, asking herself why she hadn’t escaped this conversation yet like she had the last and realising to her surprise that she was actually kind of curious about the Terran. And if she was so eager to share… “What changed?”

Natasha shrugged. “Someone put their trust in me. I suppose that started it all, really.”

They sat in silence for a bit, each lost in their own thoughts. Then Nebula decided to ask something she had been wondering about. “Why were you on the run?”

Natasha considered her, and for a moment Nebula was worried she would start interrogating her about Gamora again. But she seemed to decide against it. “It’s kind of a long story.”

Nebula swallowed some water. It was pleasantly cool. “I don’t have anything else planned.”

That made Natasha smile.

* * *

So once more, Nebula got to hear Natasha telling her of the past. About how the Avengers were formed in response to Thanos’ first advances, and about everything after that. And Nebula settled in to listen, the gentle lull of the Terran’s voice slowly easing the tension she felt whenever thoughts of her sister intruded. Instead, she lost herself in Terra’s story - and Natasha’s - watching the woman the entire time as she spoke. If the unfaltering stare bothered Natasha, she didn’t show it. It was certainly a long story, sometimes confusing to Nebula but the Terran readily answered any questions. So they sat there, sipping water and talking.

By the time they headed back, the sun was already setting. As the grass whipped against her ankles once more and she watched the gentle orange light flood their path, Nebula realised that it was the first time in a very long time she felt at peace.

**Author's Note:**

> there's one more chapter coming, folks. as ever, do feel free to drop by my [Tumblr](https://arimabat.tumblr.com) to chat


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